Gaming systems that provide players awards in primary or base games are well known. These gaming systems generally require a player to place a wager to activate a play of the primary game. For many of these gaming systems, any award provided to a player for a wagered-on play of a primary game is based on the player obtaining a winning symbol or a winning symbol combination and on an amount of the wager (e.g., the higher the amount of the wager, the higher the award). Winning symbols or winning symbol combinations that are less likely to occur typically result in higher awards being provided when they do occur.
For such known gaming systems, an amount of a wager placed on a primary game by a player may vary. For instance, a gaming system may enable a player to wager a minimum quantity of credits, such as one credit (e.g., one penny, nickel, dime, quarter, or dollar), up to a maximum quantity of credits, such as five credits. The gaming system may enable the player to place this wager a single time or multiple times for a single play of the primary game. For instance, a gaming system configured to operate a slot game may have one or more paylines, and the gaming system may enable a player to place a wager on each of the paylines for a single play of the slot game. Thus, it is known that a gaming system, such as one configured to operate a slot game, may enable players to place wagers of substantially different amounts on each play of a primary game. For example, the amounts of the wagers may range from one credit up to 125 credits (e.g., five credits on each of twenty-five separate paylines). This is also true for other wagering games, such as video draw poker, in which players can place wagers of one or more credits on each hand, and in which multiple hands can be played simultaneously. Accordingly, it should be appreciated that different players play at substantially different wager amounts or levels and substantially different rates of play.
Various known gaming systems enable a player to wager on and play a plurality of primary or base games simultaneously. In many of these known gaming systems, the award for each played primary game is based on the player obtaining a winning symbol or winning symbol combination and on the amount of the wager placed on that primary game. Certain of these known gaming systems enable a player to place multiple wagers on multiple games and simultaneously display multiple plays of these multiple games. More specifically, these gaming systems enable the player to place a wager amount on each of the multiple games and, for each individual game played, the gaming systems determine any awards based on the generated symbol combinations and the wager amount placed for that game.
There is a continuing need to provide new and different gaming systems and methods that incorporate new and different ways of playing multiple games simultaneously, thereby increasing player enjoyment, entertainment, and excitement.